Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth traced what is now the Great Western Highway route between Glenbrook and Mount Victoria, taking 21 days.

On Saturday, the descendants of the original three explorers celebrated the bicentenary of that achievement with a flyover of the Blue Mountains involving about 75 aircraft.

The flyover made the crossing from Richmond to Bathurst in about an hour and in much greater comfort.

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Rob Bettington, whose great-great-great-great-grandfather was Lawson, said taking part in the commemoration was ''a massive honour''.

''We are not doing anything like our ancestors did and we have some idea of where we are going,'' he said. ''It is an amazing effort what they did. They were about to wind the colony up because they were not able to feed it from the Sydney basin.''

Mr Bettington, who lives in Bullaburra, said when he tells people he is a descendant they say, '''That's pretty cool,' which it is.''

Stephen Wentworth, great-great-great-grandson to William, still has the adventurer's hip flask and ink wells. He planned on taking a hip flask to the commemoration ''but not that one''. He has also joined a walking party re-enacting the crossing in the same time frame of 21 days and with similar equipment as the original crossing, which is set to finish on Friday.

The party consists of a core of seven people - three representing the explorers, three the convicts and one kangaroo hunter.

''When we started out from St Marys we realised how it all fitted in with history,'' he said. ''The journals say they were looking to find enough grass and pasture to feed the colony for 30 years. They found enough for 200 years.''

David Blaxland, whose great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was Gregory Blaxland, said the family still had his duelling pistols.

''There wasn't a lot of gratitude shown towards them from the powers that be at the time,'' he said.

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''For the explorers, it would have been extremely tough going through virgin country.